Friday, 12 February 2010

So last nights dinner was.....

Ratatouille with Pasta and Parmesan.

Ratatouille is essentially a Mediterranean vegetable stew and as a peasant food it means that there is no fixed recipe and you can adjust it to suit whatever ingredients you have hanging about. So I like to include the basic six ingredients:Aubergine, Courgettes, Peppers, Onions, Garlic and tinned Tomatoes

Quantities don't really matter that much to be honest. Just make sure the veg is cut to fairly evenly matched sizes, sautee them in a large pan over a medium heat in a spray of olive oil.(handy hint - don't buy the weirdo low fat spray oils, just buy a pump spray bottle and fill with regular olive oil).

Add a tin on tomatoes or two depending on the quantities, a large pinch of dried oregano, a good pinch of salt and pepper and let it simmer for at least 30-40 mins.

Now that is the basic recipe and works well but I tend to mess with it frequently for a number of reasons. Namely because this is a brilliant low point dinner and I eat it regularly and ergo get BORED. So for example last night I added celery for crunch, a finely diced chilli for spice, a large handful of queen olives (roughly chopped) for savouryness and a whole punnet of mushrooms because they needed to be used up.

I served this with a little bit of fusilli pasta and a handful of grated parmesan cheese.